V. I. Lenin

Ivan Vasilyevich Babushkin

An Obituary

Published:Rabochaya GazetaNo. 2, December 18 (31), 1910.

      Published according to the text inRabochaya Gazeta.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1974],

      Moscow,Volume 16,

      pages361-364.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
      © 2004

      Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the
      terms of theGNU Free Documentation License.

Weare living in accursed conditions when it is possible for such things as the
following to happen: a prominent Party worker, the pride of the Party, a comrade
who unselfishly devoted his life to the cause of the working class, disappears
without a trace. Even his nearest relatives, like his wife or his mother, his
most intimate comrades do not know for years what has become of him: whether he
is pining some where in penal servitude, whether he has perished in some prison
or has died the death of a hero in battle with the enemy. Such was the case with
Ivan Vasilyevich, who was shot by Rennenkampf. We learned about his death only
quite recently.

Thename of Ivan Vasilyevich is near and dear not only to
Social-Democrats. All who knew him loved and respected him for his energy, his
avoidance of phrase-mongering, his profound and staunch revolutionary spirit and
fervent devotion to the cause. A St. Petersburg worker, in 1895 with a group of
other class-conscious workers, he was very active in the district beyond the
Nevskaya Zastava among the workers of the Semyannikov and Alexandrov factories
and the Glass Works, forming circles, organising libraries and studying very
hard himself all the time.

Allhis thoughts were fixed on one thing—how to widen the scope of the
work. He took an active part in drawing up thefirst agitational
leafletput out in St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1894, a leaflet
addressed to the Semyannikov workers, and he distributed it himself. When the
League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Glass was formed in
St. Petersburg, Ivan Vasilyevich became one of its most active members and
worked in it until he was arrested. The idea of starting a political newspaper
abroad to promotethe unification and consolidation of the Social-Democratic Party was
discussed with him by his old comrades who had worked with him in
St. Petersburg, the founders ofIskra, and received his warmest
support. While Ivan Vasilyevich was at libertyIskranever went
short of genuine workers’ correspondence. Look through the first twenty
issues ofIskra, all these letters from Shuya, Ivanovo-Voznesensk,
Orekhovo-Zuyevo and other places in Central Russia: they nearly all passed
through the hands of Ivan Vasilyevich, who made every effort to establish
the closest contact betweenIskraand the workers. Ivan
Vasilyevich wasIskra’smost assiduous correspondent and its
ardent supporter. From the central region Babushkin made his way to the
south, where he was arrested in Ekaterinoslav and imprisoned in
Alexandrovsk. From Alexandrovsk he escaped with another comrade by sawing
through the window-bars of his cell. Without knowing a single foreign
language he made his way to London, where theIskraeditorial
office was at the time. A lot of things were talked over there, a lot of
questions were discussed with him. But Ivan Vasilyevich did not get the
chance to attend the Second Party Congress ... imprisonment and exile put
him out of active service for a long time. The revolutionary wave that
arose brought new functionaries, new Party leaders to the fore, but
Babushkin at this time was living in the Far North, in Verkhoyansk, cut off
from Party life. But the time was not wasted for him, he studied, he
equipped him self for the struggle, he was active among the workers who
were his comrades in exile, trying to make them class-conscious
Social-Democrats and Bolsheviks. In 1905 came the amnesty and Babushkin set
out for Russia. But Siberia too was seething with struggle and people like
Babushkin were needed there. He joined the Irkutsk Committee and plunged
headlong into the work. He had to speak at meetings, carry on
Social-Democratic agitation and organise an uprising. While Babushkin and
five other comrades—whose names we have not learned—were taking a large
consignment of arms from Chita in a separate railway car the train was held
up by one of Rennenkampf’s punitive expeditions and all six, without the
slightest pretence of a trial were lined up on the edge of a common grave
hastily dug on the spot and shot. They died like heroes. The story of their
death was told bysoldiers who saw it and railwaymen who were in the same train. Babushkin
fell a victim to the bestial savagery of the tsarist myrmidon but, in
dying, he knew that the cause to which he had devoted his life would not
die, that it would be continued by tens, hundreds of thousands, millions of
other hands, that other working-class comrades would die for the same
cause, that they would fight until they were victorious....

Somepeople have concocted and are spreading a fairy-tale
to the effect that the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party is a party of
“intellectuals”, that the workers are isolated from it, that the workers
in Russia are Social-Democrats without a Social-Democratic party; that this
was the case particularly before the revolution and, to a considerable
extent, during the revolution. The liberals are spreading this lie out of
hatred for the revolutionary mass struggle which the R.S.D.L.P. led in
1905, and some socialists have been repeating this lying theory either out
of ignorance or irresponsibility. The life history of Ivan Vasilyevich
Babushkin, the ten years’ Social-Democratic activity of thisworker-Iskristis a striking refutation of this liberal
lie. I. V. Babushkin is one of those working-class militants who10
yearsbefore the revolution began to create theworkers’Social-Democratic Party. Had it not been for the tireless, heroically
persistent work of such militants among the proletarian masses the
R.S.D.L.P. could not have existed ten months let alone ten years. Thanks
only to the activities ofsuchmilitants, thanks only to their
support, the R.S.D.L.P. developed by 1905 into a Party whichbecame
inseparably fusedwith the proletariat in the great days of October
and December, which maintained this connection in the person of theworkers’ deputiesnot only in the Second, but even in the Third,
Black-Hundred Duma.

Theliberals (Cadets) want to make a national hero out of the late
S. A. Muromtsev who was the Chairman of the First Duma. We, the
Social-Democrats, must not let the opportunity slip of expressing our
contempt and hatred of the tsarist government, which persecuted even such
moderate and inoffensive officials as Muromtsev. Muromtsev was onlya liberal official. He was not even a democrat. He was afraid of the
revolutionary struggle of the masses. He expected the liberation of Russia
to come not from this struggle, but from the good will of the tsarist
autocracy, from anagreementwith this malicious and ruthless
enemy of the Russian people. It is ridiculous to regard such people as
national heroes of the Russian revolution.

Butthere are such national heroes. They are people like
Babushkin. They are people who, not for a year or two but for a whole
decade before the revolution, whole-heartedly devoted themselves to the
struggle for the emancipation of the working class. They are people who did
not dissipate their energies on the futile terrorist acts of individuals,
but who worked persistently and unswervingly among the proletarian masses,
helping to developtheirconsciousness,theirorganisation andtheirrevolutionary initiative. They are people
who stood at the head of the armed mass struggle against the tsarist
autocracy when the crisis, began, when the revolution broke out and when
millions and millions were stirred into action. Everything won from the
tsarist autocracy was wonexclusivelyby the struggle of the
masses led by such people as Babushkin.

Withoutsuch men the Russian people would remain for ever a people of
slaves and serfs. With such men the Russian people will win complete
emancipation from all exploitation.

Thefifth anniversary of the December uprising of 1905, has already
passed. Let us honour this anniversary by remembering the militant workers
who fell in the fight against the enemy. We request our worker comrades to
collect and send us reminiscences of the struggle of that period and
additional information about Babushkin and also about other
Social-Democratic workers who fell in the uprising of 1905. We intend to
publish a pamphlet on the lives of such workers. Such a pamphlet will be
the best answer to all sceptics and disparagers of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party. Such a pamphlet will be excellent reading
matter for young workers, who will learn from it how every class-conscious
worker should live and act.